Chapter 1: The Global Environment Outlook Process

Overview of Remaining Chapters

Chapter 2. Regional Perspectives

Chapter 2 looks at existing key regional State of the
Environment reports, action plans, and sectoral reports. It provides
a global synthesis of the primary regional environmental problems,
the driving forces behind them, and emerging concerns. The issues
are analysed against a background of existing development patterns
and objectives, operating policies, practices, and institutions.

Inevitably, there are gaps and incompatibilities of data sets
and reporting techniques between regions, as each report
has a different concept, content, and depth. It is, however, through
such a systematic analysis of regional reports that further harmonization
of reporting can be achieved, leading to a comprehensive global
overview based on regional realities.

Chapter 3. Policy Responses and Directions

This chapter takes the first step in forging the link
between assessment and policy. It presents the outcome of regional
policy and assessment consultations conducted as part of the GEO
Project. The discussions involved policy and sectoral experts
using scientific inputs from the Collaborating Centres and the
draft GEO-1 chapters as background material. (See
Appendix 3.)

Chapter 4. Looking to the Future

This chapter explores the future to the year 2015 and
beyond using a model-based approach, assuming that no major policy
or institutional changes will take place. For a selected number
of topics, it attempts quantitative analyses of changes in environmental
and socio-economic factors and their interlinkages. It bases the
analyses on contemporary situations and trends as well as on data
from the past. The possible future impacts on the environment
of current development processes are highlighted. A brief example
is given of changes in the future if different policies or life-styles
were to be applied.